It’s expected that up to 300 officers will march to NSW Parliament House in Sydney.

Ambulance officers said they were frustrated over a lack of support as the 11th review in eight years into the ambulance service is conducted by an Upper House committee on Tuesday.

A spokesperson for the Health Service Union said ambulance officers were the most trusted profession in NSW and were under enormous pressure to save lives.

“The recent release of the 10th review completed by the Department of Premier and Cabinet largely did not grapple with the real problems - understaffing, workplace bullying and a lack of resources for ambos to do their jobs properly,” Health Services Union general secretary Michael Williamson said.

According to Mr Williamson ambulance officers were on the edge.

“Crew numbers have stayed relatively static for the last decade. Demand soars by 5 to 10 per cent every year. Review after review into the service has not fixed these problems, and now with this Premier’s Department review they have had enough,” he said.

Mr Williamson also said there was an urgent need for an immediate surge of an extra 300 ambulance paramedics this year, along with 60 extra patient transport officers.

“We need the immediate removal of the senior management who have been asleep at the wheel. We need a new management team to step up and sort out the service and the future community needs on a proper planned and resourced basis for 2009 onwards,” he said.

Mr Williamson said the plight of this profession was continually ignored - to the detriment of the community . He added that the Health Services Union, which represents ambulance officers, has continually called for change in the ambulance service but members now felt the time had come for critical action to take place in order to fix a very broken service.

The Health Service Union said work bans would continue until a breakthrough was achieved.

belinda.galloway@ruralpress.com